


Black Water

by AvaRosier



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, rusalkas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 21:50:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvaRosier/pseuds/AvaRosier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say that she is a monster because she seduces men to their deaths. As if they didn’t deserve it in the first place. If only men weren’t so weak. And they say she is a monster because she would kill them all, not just the one that deserves it. As if that mattered. </p><p>Lydia watches the strange boy crouch on the rock outcropping before her. He is more beast than boy, but he never makes a move toward her. He raises his face to the moon and howls. Lydia likes the song he sings for the moon. Sometimes she wishes he would sing for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Water

**Author's Note:**

  * For [happycloudsky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/happycloudsky/gifts).



> Title and lyrics come from the song by Timber Timbre.

  
_I found empathy from madness_  
 _deliverance from malaise_  
 _my heart is is filled with gladness_  
 _at the only spirit that I crave_

_all I need is some sunshine_  
 _all I need.._  


 

* * *

 

She floats in the murky brown waters, and dreams of sunshine, uncomfortable shoes, and things like non-fat frappuccinos. But that is all they are to her- dreams of a world she does not know how she created in her imagination. The dark water is oblivion, and she passes her time in its cocoon, letting the pressure stream across her nude body as she sluices her way through it. There is no place for her to go, no purpose for her here. She simply floats.

It does not occur to her that she might need to breathe; or that once upon a time, she had such a need for oxygen in her lungs.

The moon outside is beautiful, heavy and round, when she emerges onto the dry land.

She is not always alone here.

 _Sing_ , something compels her.

Lydia does not sing, she opens her mouth and screeches until all the birds have flown away in fright, demanding to be heard by all.

A boy came to her once, a sneer etched onto his face until he laid his blue eyes upon her pale and naked form. She had smiled up at him, sweet promise exuding from her pores and wet red strands barely covering her breasts.

 _Come to the water_ , she had coaxed, her hand upon his.  _Come to me and we can be together_.

He had fucked her amongst the stones and the reeds. She sang her pleasure and then clamped her mouth over his so that she could take his breath. She had clutched him in her embrace as he gave her his seed; she had held him tight as they sank deeper into the water.  It did not occur to her that the boy might need to breath until he wasn’t.

She places stones over Jackson’s body at the bottom of the lake. She still visits him from time to time, but it’s not as nice once the fish have eaten his eyes.

There were other boys. Men.

But on nights like this, when the moon is uncovered, there are others who answer its song.

Lydia watches the strange boy crouch on the rock outcropping before her. He is more beast than boy, but he never makes a move toward her. He raises his face to the moon and howls. Lydia likes the song he sings for the moon. Sometimes she wishes he would sing for her.

She stays in the water when he comes. He inspires strange dreams in her. In those dreams she is always terrified and there is a strange man with claws and red eyes. And fangs. She awakes to remember burning pain in her side.

But Lydia decides to be brave one night and she walks out of the water to where the boy waits, watching her carefully. Rivulets rush off her flesh, but dew-drops cling to her body to remind her that she is not alone and how to find her way home again.

He remains on his knees before her, naked so he could cavil in the moonlight. Now that they have seen each other without their skins on, Lydia steps closer and palms the hairy growth along his jaw. He presses his nose in between her thighs and snuffles.  She widens her legs and allows him to taste her briny flesh. His claws are careful never to nick her thighs, and his fangs abstain from devouring her.

He makes her sing a song of her own for the moon.

Drunk on the oxygen flooding her lungs, Lydia pushes him back until she can straddle him. This time, he does howl for  _her_.

Her moon-lover talks to her sometimes.  _Scott_ , he growls,  _my name is Scott_. She tells him her own name: flicks her tongue for the melodious  _Ly_ , giving  the sound space to leap out of the water’s surface before it bursts into the air with  _di_ , and then lets it sink back into the depths with  _a_. He holds her hands, just like people would in her dreams of dry-land and sunshine.

She tells him about her dreams, about the strange things that come into her mind.  _A satisfactory preparation of the Fluidextract of Aconite should kill guinea-pigs when administered in doses of 0.00004 mil for each gramme of body weight of guinea-pig; a satisfactory Tincture of Aconite should prove fatal to guinea-pigs when given in doses of 0.0004 mil for each gramme of body weight of guinea-pig and a satisfactory Extract of Aconite should have a minimum lethal dose not greater than 0.00001 Gm. for each gramme of body weight of guinea-pig._  He touches her flank, where the ugly red scars are.

One night, he says the name.  _Peter Hale._

And she cannot breathe, nor can she understand why she would ever need to fear not breathing. She plunges back into the water. There, she cannot sob because there is no air in her lungs and even if she cried, she would not feel the tears amidst the flood.

But like the lightning that strikes the sand and leaves misshapen glass behind, Lydia does not dream any longer. She  _remembers_.

They say water-spirits such as she are maidens who had been jilted by their lovers and whom had died of broken hearts. Other stories say she had died violently. But what they really mean is that she had been  _violated._  Because how could any girl go on after that? How could any girl not turn into some sort of wraith who was sullied and forever unclean?

They say that she is a monster because she seduces men to their deaths. As if they didn’t deserve it in the first place. If only men weren’t so weak. And they say she is a monster because she would kill them all, not just the one that deserves it. As if that mattered. 

And in most of the stories, they say only true love would break the curse. That’s the joke, because who would love such a monstrous woman? In other stories, the horror stories that boys laugh nervously at around campfires, they also say the curse can be broken by vengeance. 

On the next round-moon, Lydia’s wolf-lover returns to her, bearing gifts.

Peter Hale is not dead, but he is clinging to life ever so tenaciously. Scott moves away from the weakened form, leaving it to her. Lydia howls and digs her teeth into Peter Hale’s neck. He is just dead when she leans over to press a bloody kiss into Scott’s mouth, to thank him for the prize he has brought her. 

Scott helps her drag the body to the edge of the water. Lydia takes Peter down with her to the depths and lets loose with a screech. It is music to the other water-spirits’ ears. They have been asleep so long, they no longer dream. But they will partake in her vengeance. They are not possessive, it matters not to them whether she stays or goes. All that matters is the tearing of flesh and sinew, the ripping apart of bone joints and the final-death that brought with it true oblivion. 

Peter Hale, all the parts of him, are ferried to the farthest corners of the lake like trophies that will be soon enough forgotten.

The transformation begins while she is far away from the shore. Bubbles float hurriedly up to the surface and she writhes as pain suffuses her nerve endings.

Dying hurts. Living hurts even worse.

 _Drowning_. That is the word for what she is now. She is drowning and it is only now that she truly understands that life had been her dream all along. Life is on the suface, Life is eating chocolate and peanut butter, sleeping in on Sundays, and stacking the dirty dishes in the dishwasher because Mom has to work late and Lydia really should be a good daughter at least this once.

Arms curl around her torso and lift her bodily out of the water. Lydia gasps and for the first time in a long time, really breathes in a lungful of air. It matters now because she remembers what it means. Scott holds onto her as the last of the changes rack her body. He is not always more beast than boy, and he knows what her pain must feel like.

It is over at dawn. 

Scott wakes up, almost entirely human, and sees Lydia peering down at him with her hair all dried around her in golden-red waves. Lydia thinks Scott looks odd as a boy, but he is hers and she knows what his song sounds like. She puts her hand in his and lets him lead her to a small opening in a tree at the edge of the preserve.

 _I leave my clothes here during the full-moon, so I don’t have to worry about walking home naked and being seen_ , he explains to her. Scott dons the jeans and the sneakers. He gives Lydia the shirt that dwarfs her to the tops of her thighs. He carries her until they are out of the woods and she can walk without pain.

Sometimes, she will remember floating in murky brown water. It will seem like nothing more than a strange dream that had lasted no time at all, even if seven years have passed since her death at Peter Hale’s hands.

The dreams do not scare her, and she always wakes up to sunshine.


End file.
